


Learning To Live Again

by TheNightOwl



Category: Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: Coexisting, Eventual Raptor Pack discussiong, F/M, Grief, Loss, Owen and Claire 5ever, PTSD, Probably Some Smut In Here Somewhere, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 09:10:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4174218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNightOwl/pseuds/TheNightOwl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two months after Jurassic Disaster, Owen and Claire live together in an apartment in Costa Rica. Owen thinks Claire has PTSD, but Claire doesn't want to believe him and besides, she thinks she can handle it on her own. However, Owen insists she see a therapist and so he goes along for support and also has to share his feelings about losing the Pack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning To Live Again

“Hey, I’m home,” Claire Dearing called out as she walked in the front door of her apartment. She threw her keys on the island counter and set down the paper grocery bags she had been carrying. Then she went to the fridge, pulled out an iced tea and waited to hear the footsteps of her boyfriend Owen Grady. When the only thing Claire heard was silence, she turned around to look at the doorway. “Owen?” Claire said. She stepped through the kitchen into the living room. Her eyes scanned over the two couches, coffee table, end tables, and the book cases. “Hey, babe, where are you at?” Claire was beginning to feel a little silly, but she also felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. She knocked on the bathroom door, and when there was no answer, she opened the door. When she saw what was laying on the floor, she screamed horrifically and backed out of the bathroom door into the living room.

  
Claire thought she was done with damned dinosaurs. That’s all she saw on the floor, was a six foot, four-legged, spiky-crested damn dinosaur on the floor of her bathroom. She looked for anything hefty and decided the soap dispenser on the sink would do. She picked it up, cranked back her arm, and—  
“Claire, don’t!” Owen came crashing into the living room from the spare bedroom, holding a harness. He ran up to her and grabbed her arm. He snatched the soap dispenser from her hand. He went into the bathroom even as Claire tugged at his shirt.  
“Owen!” Claire gasped. She meant to say ‘Stop!’ or ‘Don’t go in there!’ or ‘Give me my damn soap dispenser back!’ but all that came out was his name.  
Owen’s body blocked the view of the beast on the tile, but when Owen moved out of the way, Claire saw that he had put a harness and a leash on the thing.  
“What the heck are you doing? What is that thing? Why is there a damn dinosaur house?!” Claire demanded.  
“Our house,” Owen corrected. “And, it’s not a dinosaur, okay? It’s not a dinosaur.” Owen made his voice smooth and quiet. Claire was clearly three wrong words away from an emotional catastrophe.  
“What is it?” Claire’s voice shook and she held her hands out in front of her, her body pressed into the couch. If she moved any farther back she would flip over it.  
“It’s a green iguana,” Owen explained. “It belongs to the kid next door and he asked me to watch it for an hour or two. It’s a herbivore. It eats plants and fruits. I promise that it is perfectly harmless.”  
“I don’t want it in here, Owen. I don’t!” Her voice was shrill again.  
“It’s okay, I swear. I’m sorry. I should’ve called you,” Owen said slowly. “Can we come out? I promise he’s going straight to the spare bedroom. You won’t see him again until the kid comes to get him.”  
“Fine,” Claire breathed. She wiped her face with her palms and moved away from the couch. She retreated to the kitchen. She lifted herself onto the counter and brushed her hand through her hair, briefly. When Owen came into the kitchen, his hands were clasped in front of him and he was wearing a guilty and apologetic expression. He approached until he was only a few inches in front of her, but he stopped there.  
“Are you okay?” Owen asked.  
Claire nodded. “I just—it just—it looked like a dinosaur.”  
Owen nodded. “I’m sorry. I should’ve known how you would’ve reacted.”  
Claire made a face. “How I would’ve reacted? What, like this is my fault?”  
Owen furrows his eyebrows. “Well I mean, you were the one that screamed and attempted to smash it with a soap dispenser. That wouldn’t have worked, by the way.”  
“Are you serious, Owen? There was a damn dinosaur on my floor! I’m pretty sure that was a completely appropriate response!”  
“Claire, it’s not a dinosaur! And—“  
“After being chased and scratched and nearly getting killed? After the deaths of a thousand people? Being directly responsible for the near deaths of Zach and Gray?” Claire shouted as she jumped off the counter, advancing towards Owen. “That’s all my damn fault?” Her voiced lifted at the end, like a question. But it was a question she was asking herself. “It’s all my fault!” Claire’s voice cracked at the end like a dam, and then the tears came flooding out. She sank to her knees as sobs shook her chest. “It’s all my fault,” she repeated softly to herself.  
“Claire,” Owen said as he kneeled next to her. He carefully got close to her, and put two hands on her shoulders. “Hey,” he whispered. He pulled her close to him and she was resistant at first, but then her head made contact with his shoulder and she melted into him. He wrapped his arms around her and she cried in his arms.  
“I’m sorry, Owen. I’m so so sorry.”  
“It’s not your fault.” Owen kissed her temple and rubbed her arms. “It’s okay, Claire. Everything’s okay. Zach and Gray still love you. Karen and Scott love you. I…I love you.” It was the first time he’d ever said those words to her. It had always been apparent to each of them that love was there, but with each of their control-issues, they had never actually told each other.  
Claire’s gasps halted and she looked up at Owen through teary-eyes, mascara running on her face. “You what?” She asked.  
“I love you,” Owen repeated proudly. “I love you. And what happened at the park wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t.” Owen kissed her forehead. “I love you.”  
Claire put her hand on the back of Owen’s neck and drew his face to hers. Their lips met and she pressed into him. When they pulled apart, some of her tears were on Owen’s cheeks. They took turns wiping the makeup off each other’s faces. Claire smiled through her tears and kissed Owen again. “I love you.”

Owen gave her a big smile. “What do you say we make some dinner?” He asked as he got up from the floor. He offered his hand to Claire and she took it as she stood up.  
“Okay,” Claire said as she took a deep, shuddering breath. She went to the countertop beside the fridge and pulled out a cookbook. “What were you thinking? I bought some sushi at the grocery store today—oh! Sushi! Owen, put that away please.”  
“Ugh no, no sushi. Can’t we have some American food once in a while? What’s a man gotta do for a cheeseburger around here?” Owen began digging in the paper grocery bags and began putting the food items away.  
Claire smiled ruefully and continued to flip through the cookbook. “Cheeseburgers are not on our diet.”  
“Our diet? Since when is it ‘our diet’? I did not agree to that!” Owen protested half-seriously. He moved closer and wrapped his arms around Claire from behind. He smiled into her hair and Claire tried to stop herself from blushing. “Come on. What about turkey-burgers. Turkey is heart-healthy. I had turkey burgers all the time as a kid. I can make them.”  
“Turkey is heart-healthy,” Claire confirmed, impressed. “How did you know that? I think we have a pack of turkey in the fridge.”  
Owen shrugged. “My dad had a heart attack when I was a teenager. After that, we went through some lifestyle changes. I can’t even taste the turkey anymore,” Owen said with a smile as he retrieved the turkey from the fridge. He stepped around Claire and turned their flat-top stove on.  
“Oh. Wow,” Claire said. “He was okay, though, right? Your dad?” She sounded a little anxious. What if he was dead, and she just asked the worst question possible?  
“Oh, yeah. I mean, it was a pretty big heart attack, but my dad’s a fighter.” Owen smiled at Claire. “He’d like you.”  
“I should meet him,” Claire said as she sat at the island counter. It was high enough that her high-heeled feet swung underneath her.  
“Well, he lives in the States. So maybe someday.”  
Claire lifted her ocean-blue eyes to gaze out the window above the kitchen sink. She could see the palm trees sway from the wind and knew from this morning’s walk to the car that the Central American heat made it unbearably humid outside. Her impeccably straight red hair had given up all intention of remaining that way and had curled into relaxed waves. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been to America,” Claire said.  
Suddenly there was a knock on the door, and a lanky, tow-headed youth entered.  
“Oh, hey, kid,” Owen greeted him. “The lizard’s in the back room.”  
The pre-teen nodded and went through the kitchen. Claire felt a lump in her throat as she knew that she would soon be seeing her scaly green nemesis again. The kid appeared back in the kitchen with his iguana on the leash. While Claire seriously doubted it, she thought she saw contempt in the lizard’s eyes as he crawled past her.  
“Hey, thanks for watching him,” the kid said as he was almost out the door.  
Claire stood and smoothed down her peach colored skirt. She smiled professionally. “Yes, yes, you’re welcome, but I don’t think we will ever be able to watch him again. Ever. Thank you!” Claire said as she placed an ushering hand on the boy’s shoulder and then shut the door behind him.  
Owen titled his head and smacked his lips together while flipping the turkey burgers.  
“What?” Claire asked, putting her hands on her hips.  
“That’s not exactly fair, Claire.” Owen said.  
“How is that not fair? It’s my house, and I don’t want it here.”  
“Our house. And I think there’s a deeper reason than that.”  
Claire rolled her eyes. “Owen, I don’t want to discuss this again. I don’t have—“  
“What, PTSD? I really think you do, Claire. And running away from it isn’t going to solve anything.” Owen said in frustration. He slapped cheese angrily on the turkey burgers and transferred them from the stove to two plates.  
“Well, how the hell would you know if I have post-traumatic stress?”  
“I was in the damn navy, Claire. Do you honestly think I can’t recognize the signs of post-traumatic stress? You have nightmares all the time. Sometimes you space out and you shake. You can’t stand to be around an iguana—“  
“It looked like a dinosaur! It was a huge iguana!”  
“And that’s another thing! If you constantly avoid things that remind you of your trauma, it’s a symptom of PTSD.”  
Claire shook her head and rolled her eyes. She looked at the ceiling, annoyed. “Okay, Owen. Keep listing everything that’s wrong with me. I get it, I’m a mess.”  
Owen shook his head. He leaned over the kitchen island to look Claire in the eyes. “Listen to me, Claire,” he said as he took her hands. “There is nothing wrong with you having PTSD. A lot of my buddies have it. I have some aspects of it—it’s just a thing that happens. It’s understandable. Jurassic World was traumatizing, for Christ’s sake!” he said with a smile. “But if we don’t treat it—it’s going to ruin our lives.” Owen let go of Claire hands and started digging around in a drawer.  
“What are you doing?” Claire asked, still mildly annoyed.  
“I’m looking for something. InGen hired me straight out of the navy. I came straight from Afghanistan to Costa Rica. I had to—I had to see a therapist here before I moved out to Isla Nublar. I think you should see him too.” Owen found what he was looking for—a yellow notepad with some scribblings on it. It was a name, a phone number, and an address.  
Claire snorted. “You want me to see a therapist? I do not need a therapist!”  
“Claire, will you stop being such a damn priss and take the number?” Owen demanded. He dropped the notepad in front of Claire. Then he turned around to grab the burgers. He gave one to Claire and began to eat angrily in an effort to stop talking to her.  
Claire picked up the yellow notepad to read the name. “Doctor Richard Right. His name is Dr. Right? Are you serious?” She asked, amused. She remembered something that Owen had said earlier and her voice dropped in volume and animosity. “You said you had…aspects of PTSD? I thought you were in the navy.”  
Owen chewed thoroughly and stared at Claire. It was one of his communication mechanisms that sometimes annoyed Claire because she didn’t fully understand it yet. She wasn’t a mind-reader, and if he didn’t speak to her, she didn’t know what he was thinking. Finally he swallowed with a gulp and Claire tried to keep her eyes from rolling. Table manners.  
“I was in the navy. But I was active-duty navy, and I was selected as an individual augmentee. I was boots-on-the-ground in Afghanistan when we were short on troops. I spent three years in Afghanistan, and three years in Japan.” Owen gave Claire a small smile. “And that totals my time out of States to twelve years. Beat ya. And anyway, when I got to Costa Rica I had some…issues that needed taken care of. I was recommended to Dr. Right, and now I only have nightmares and consider that a miracle.”  
Claire looked down. She had felt Owen twitching in the middle of the night, been woken up by his cold sweats, but she had always assumed they were _just_ bad dreams. She leaned over and placed her chin on his shoulder. “I don’t want to go therapy,” she said like a pouting child.  
“Well, that is tough, babe.” Owen cajoled as he took another bite of his sandwich. “I’ll make an appointment for you tomorrow. I’ll even come with you. For survival, you know,” Owen said with his mouth full.  
“I can make my own appointment. I’m not ten. And don’t eat with your mouth full.” Claire said as she took a bite of her own sandwich.  
“Yeah, okay, Mom. I know you can make your own appointment, I just don’t think you will, so I’m making sure.”  
Claire smiled and shook her head. “Yeah, whatever, Dad.” She teased back.

Claire and Owen fell into bed as usual that night. They always started out cuddling, but as the night went on, their body positions became more haphazard. A leg on top of a leg, an arm thrown over someone’s chest.  
But tonight, Owen was hotter than a furnace and Claire insisted that he not touch her and make her sweaty. But Claire didn’t need any help from Owen to make her sweat.

  
_A deafening roar split the air. It resonated in Claire’s soul. That fucking monster’s going to kill us, Claire thought. We’re all going to die. And it’s all going to be my fault. Claire ran as fast as she could, the ground shook from every giant step the Indominus took behind her. Run, Claire! She screamed to herself. Run! She felt the monster lean in behind her, smelled it’s breath, the rank air coming out of its mouth. God damn! Claire screamed._

  
Claire screamed. She sat straight up in bed, echoing her last action in her nightmare. The Indominus got her. It picked Claire up in her jaws and all Claire heard was the crunch of bone. She was sweating and tears were streaming down her face. Her body shook with small, terrified sobs even still. Owen jolted with fright and looked over at Claire.  
“Oh, baby,” he said resignedly as he folded her into his arms. “It was just a dream. It’s okay.” He kissed her hair and rubbed her arms as he slowly rocked back and forth.  
“It felt so real,” Claire cried. Her forehead leaned against Owen’s collarbone. She felt absolutely drained, like she had no energy left in her body, even though she’d slept for three hours.  
“I know it did, baby. I know it did.”  
“I’ll just fucking do it. I’ll go to therapy. I will. If it just makes the nightmares go away.”  
Owen kissed Claire’s head again and held her even tighter. “It’s okay. Nothing is going to happen to you. I will never let anything happen to you again. Let’s just go back to sleep, okay?”  
Owen leaned back until he was flat against the mattress and Claire was meshed into him. The only way she could’ve been closer was if she slept on top. Owen kept his arm around her, pressing her to him, and held her hand with his. He didn’t go to sleep until he felt her breathing slow and even, and only then could he finally feel okay with sleeping.


End file.
